Leeds United boss Jesse Marsch believes Dean Whitehead will be gunning for the Cardiff City job and expects to face a far stronger Bluebirds team at Elland Road to reflect that.
Cardiff almost beat Leeds just over a week ago, but Sonny Perkins' last-gasp equaliser forced an equaliser up at Elland Road.
During that time, of course, Cardiff have sacked their manager, with Mark Hudson given his marching orders following the 1-1 draw with Wigan Athletic, courtesy of another last-gasp equaliser, of course, on Saturday.
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Under-fire Leeds manager Marsch, though, believes his side were dominant against the Bluebirds last time out and does not expect that to be the case this time around.
In fact, he believes that Whitehead will implement a similar methodology to what West Brom used to do under Valerien Ismael, a coach Marsch knows well from their time together in Austria.
"We dug ourselves a hole in that match," Marsch said of the first tie between these two teams. "But by many standards, especially in the second half, we were absolutely dominant.
"They had 0.0 expected goals in the second half, and we were on top of the match. Now, we were lucky with the way we scored the last-second goal. You're absolutely correct about that.
"I think we'll see a stronger side. They played a lot of reserve players, I think. I think we'll see more of a team that they played against Wigan on the weekend.
"I think that the new manager (Whitehead) will will want the job and will try to get his team to perform that way and go for the win.
"He has some history with certain people that I think also have a similar methodology to what we tried to do here. Valerien Ismael is a coach that I know well from Austria and a very good coach. He was at West Brom and he was at Besiktas - they were at Besiktas together.
"So I expect him to play a little more intensively than they did at Cardiff, but still look to defend well and catch us on the counter. So we'll be prepared for that kind of match."
Leeds put in a valiant display against Aston Villa in the Premier League at the weekend, however they eventually fell to a 2-1 defeat, leaving them 14th in the table.
Pressure appears to be mounting on the American, however, he believes that, going into this match against Cardiff, he is as confident as he has ever been.
"I think that we can we can have hope to now handle our business on Wednesday night and go for it," Marsch said.
"We know it won't be easy, but we'll be at home. The club hasn't had a home FA Cup fixture in many years. We're going absolutely to win that match.
"We need to go match by match now in the league in the cup and try to really now take the momentum from the Aston Villa game and show that we're ready for big challenges.
"So, that's the entire focus, to have this kind of conviction and belief and understanding and go after it, moment by moment, game by game.
"My belief, sitting here right now, is higher than it's ever been. And more importantly the players are in the same position."
Cardiff take on Leeds at Elland Road on Wednesday, January 18. Kick-off is at 7.45pm.
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